


The Little Phantom Girl

by midnightsnapdragon



Series: Nostalgia [10]
Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ghosts, Snowy Day theme, ghost!Cress, well it's fluffy at first but then it becomes kind of sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 10:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightsnapdragon/pseuds/midnightsnapdragon
Summary: She comes with the first snow.





	The Little Phantom Girl

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2015-2016 TLC Ship Weeks, themed "Snowy Day".

She comes with the first snow.

**i.**

Thorne has been waiting for weeks for the little phantom girl to appear. The first thing he does every morning is look out the cabin window, and feel disappointed when he does not see her face pressed against the glass panes. He had almost gotten used to her presence. 

The days grow shorter, and the nights longer. He gets ready to spend another cold winter in this drafty cabin. There’s a town maybe ten miles away, the closest pocket of civilization to the forest where he lives, so he makes a few trips there for provisions and snowshoeing gear. The journey will become impossible once it really starts snowing.

He knows from experience that he won’t find the girl, not if she doesn’t want to be found. She is insubstantial and weighs nothing at all – she could hide anywhere. He could search for years and years without ever finding her.

Besides, he has no idea how ghosts spend their free time. Making daisy crowns? Flying? Jumping out at unsuspecting hikers?

The ghost has always been a mystery to him.

Still, when he goes into the forest, he leaves the rifle behind. No bullet could touch her now, but the last thing he wants is to keep her away.

*

Before, she always came with summertime. She would dance through the golden woods, always on the edge of his sight, her long braid flung behind her like a kite – a wood nymph, a wraith – and leave pink miri flowers scattered in her wake.

Sometimes, when he looked out the cabin windows, to the forest beyond, she would wave at him shyly from the shadowy treeline.  
If he dared to come closer, she vanished.

For years Thorne had to wonder if he was losing his mind. Self-doubt was a severe blow to his confidence, especially when it was over a girl – though not the way he’d always imagined it would be.

*

When she finally let him approach her, he was not afraid. She stood there, letting bees buzz around her head, as he took slow steps forward through the grassy clearing.

When he looked at her, he did not see something unnatural or frightening. He saw that she was young, and sort of pretty, with a sweet heart-shaped face. He saw that she glowed with bright yellow sunlight, as if all that summer has fused into her essence. And, alive or not alive, there was kindness in her eyes.

They walked together. When he stepped out of the forest and into the meadow where his cabin was, he looked back in time to see her melt back into the trees.

*

Maybe ghosts get lonely, too, because she was there the next day, peeking out from behind the fence that kept wolves away from the cabin. He saw her out the window while washing the breakfast dishes and nearly dropped a bowl on his foot. The phantom ducked out of sight.

Thorne found her crouching behind the fence – waiting for him.

*

Ghosts are strange companions. They are soundless and weightless and leave no mark upon the earth. They are not quite there, and sometimes talking to them is like talking to oneself.

Most people would feel unsettled. Most people would question their own sanity.

But he has never been _most people._

Instead of sprinkling mint leaves on the windowsills and tacking nails into the doorway, thirteen at a time, Thorne welcomed her as a friend. They held races in the forest; they played board games, the ghost pointing to the moves she wanted to make and Thorne moving the pieces for her; while he prepared a dinner of smoked venison, humming a sailor tune, she sat on the counter and swung her legs.

He did most of the talking. He chattered on about the nearby town and what he thought of everyone there, sometimes even - to her amusement - musing out loud about the secret lives of ghosts.

She never spoke. The one time he dared to ask her how she had died, she gave him an odd look and was gone in the blink of an eye.

Thorne was surprised to see how much he missed her then.

*

“Where do you go?” he wanted to know. They were lying in a patch of flowery meadow, side-by-side, watching clouds stream across the cerulean sky.

She turned to him with a questioning look.

“When summer is over. You just disappear one day and don’t come back.”

All she gave him was a shrug. There was no indent in the grass where she tipped her head back, and it was the slightest bit unnerving to see the grass stalks go through her head. But friends do not judge friends.

“I think you’d like it, is all.” Thorne paused, wondering how to describe the cold season. “It’s a beauty.”

When she said nothing, he offered, “You’d fit right in.”

The way she hid her face behind her hands was almost bashful.

*

Once, when he was walking alone through the wood, she jumped down from a great tree and landed directly on the path in front of him. The look on his face must have been priceless – she bent double with inaudible laughter, clutching her sides. It was the first sign that she was starting to feel comfortable around him too.

And neither of them was lonely anymore.

*

One year, he brought a girl home. Her name was Kate Fallow. 

They spent the summer together in the cabin, alternating between the bedroom and various innocent activities. Life was good – tending the garden, hiking, and gathering mushrooms to make soup. She listened with interest as he told her about the process of making maple syrup.

Thorne wanted to introduce her to the ghost. A girl friend would do the lonely soul some good, and surely Kate would understand? 

Unlikely, considering that she ran from spiders.

But as it turned out, the little phantom girl did not appear that summer.

She only came with the cold – when the leaves began to fall.

One evening, he and Kate were curled up together with hot apple cider. Then, just for a moment, the girl’s ghostly face flickered in the cabin window with a look of hurt in her eyes, and was gone again. Thorne nearly knocked the cider over as he ran outside, leaving a disgruntled girlfriend behind. 

Outside, the trees were bare and the stars had come out. He found the girl hovering near the cabin and wringing her hands. He called out; she froze and stared at him.

Kate appeared in the doorway, asking what was wrong, urging him to get back inside. She couldn't see what he saw - but all Thorne could do was step closer to the pretty, friendly ghost girl and ask, in a low voice, “Are you okay?”

Silently, the girl laid a hand on his arm – to comfort, to push him away – but her hand went through like she was nothing but air.

Kate complained loudly of cold. Thorne tried to reason with the ghost, get her to speak, but she just stared horrified at her own fingers like she’s never seen them before.

**ii.**

He’s sitting on his front porch, blowing on a mug of tea, when the first flakes drift toward the ground. The world grows quiet.

“About time,” he mutters, breaking the muffled silence, even though a part of him is panicking. She should have appeared by now.

Then he feels a soft breath by his ear. All the worry rolls off his shoulders as he grins, and turns.

There she is, the transparent girl in a blue frock with her fair hair swept over one shoulder. Soundlessly, like the snowfall, she sits beside him and wraps her arms around her knees. The wooden porch railing is visible through her pale cheeks.

“Hey there, ghost girl,” he laughs. “What took you so long?”

Her only response is lowered eyes, and a sad smile. 

He hadn’t expected her to answer anyway. Maybe ghosts really can’t talk. So instead, he tells her about the lost cat he found at his door a few days ago, shivering and meowing plaintively. The cat has been christened Boots, Thorne explains, and will be delighted to meet her.

As if on cue, a fluffy brown tom noses open the cabin door and pads to the porch steps where they sit. Thorne watches proudly as Boots curls up beside the ghost, giving her space like she is actually there.

The girl smiles again and tries to touch the cat’s soft fur, but her fingers go through him as they do with everything else. Boots jumps as though someone’s poured ice water on him and runs into the snow.

Thorne grimaces apologetically as her shoulders slump, crestfallen.

“Sorry. It might take a while for him to get used to you. But he’ll come around, you’ll see.” Thorne sets his mug down and stands, brushing white flakes off his coat. He gestures to the door. “Want to come in?”

She bites her lip and looks away.

“Don’t be shy,” he says, grinning. “You beat me seven-to-one at Connect Four the last time, remember?” He rubs his hands together like a criminal mastermind. “I am determined to prove my worth in battle and restore my honour.”

She does nothing, just stands there with her arms wrapped around herself.

“All right, then …” Thorne tries for some enthusiasm, though worry pricks at him. She never turns down a game – in fact, she likes to win even more than he does. “Snow angels?”

She flinches.

“Right, sorry, forgot that you can’t – that you don’t – uh.” It’s his turn now to feel uncomfortable. You have to be so careful about offending ghosts. “You want to just … stay out here and talk, then?”

The girl squeezes her eyes shut. She looks like she’s about to cry.

“Are you okay?”

No response.

Thorne is at a loss. Usually when a girl gets weepy on him, he leaves, but something compels him to comfort this one. Is it chivalry? Pity? Brotherly affection? He has certainly been around her long enough.

Finally the ghost girl looks up. It occurs to him that her normally bright yellow glow has dimmed, to something almost … gray.

What does that mean?

She points to herself, then at the forest, where dark green coniferous trees are a stark contrast against the bleak sky and the snow-coated land.

“You want to go in the forest? Take a walk?”

She shakes her head and points again, to herself, to the forest. Then she mimes a cut with both hands, as if to say _no_ or _end_ or _never._

Thorne squints at her. “You … _don’t_ want to go in the forest.”

The way she rolls her eyes is surprisingly familiar.

“I don’t –“ He exhales, frustrated. “Why don’t you ever talk? Can you talk?”

The girl gives him a hurt look and makes the series of motions again. When he spread his arms at her, confused, she points at herself and raises her eyebrows in a mute prompt.

“Ah, I know this game.” Thorne clears his throat. “You …”

A _never_ slash, with both hands.

“Don’t …”

Walking fingers, toward the cabin.

He scratches his neck. “… go here?”

A shake of the head.

“Go inside?”

Another shake.

“Come back?”

The ghost points at him, as if to say, _yes, finally,_ and Thorne’s heart plummets. “What do you mean, you aren’t coming back?”

She shrugs. She is hardly more than a shadow now, with the snow shining through her weak gray image.

“You’ve always lived here, though, haven’t you? Why would you leave?”

Narrowed eyes.

“Not always,” he corrects himself quickly. “I just mean, why now? I’m not that much of a bore, am I?”

The ghost comes closer and floats upward so they are eye-to-eye. She is so close that her image is like a film laid over his vision, tingeing the scenery behind her with grayness. He meets her gaze, a bit stunned, and it occurs to him that she has never acted like a ghost before.

There are silver tears sparkling on her cheeks.

She lifts one tentative hand to his cheek, and where she touches him, ice seems to spread through his flesh. 

Thorne shudders and pulls away. He is numb from his nose to his fingertips.

Seeing this, the little phantom girl buries her face in her hands. Her shoulders begin to shake. Then she whirls away and vanishes, like nothing more than a gray rag on the wind.

**iii.**

The forest feels lonelier than before. Board games gather dust on their shelf.

She doesn’t come back next year.


End file.
